Killer roses
Posted: Tuesday 20 January, 2009
Since it was nice on Saturday, I decided to spend some time in the garden. I thought it would be good for Dan to get some fresh air too! I always have his welfare at heart.
I bought a pear tree in Tesco last week, so Dan planted that. It's a Williams' Bon Chretien. I love pears. We have one tree left out of two planted first time round, but we've never managed to get any fruit off it. Maybe we'll do better next year!
His next job was to lift and split one of the rhubarb crowns. The other one will be done once the blueberry is transplanted. I would have done that on Saturday had I been able to get some ericaceous compost; I wasn't driving into Stirling just for that, though. Finally, he pruned the blackcurrants and gave the compost bins a bit of a shoogle.
For my part, I lifted swede and parsnips; returned the manure to the beds from the paths (scraped there courtesy of the hens), swept up, spread manure on the strawberries. Finally, I set about pruning the "Blush Noisette" roses at the front door. These are quite the loveliest roses but, boy, are they scratchy.
I didn't prune them last year and they had got a bit out of hand by mid summer. There is one on either side of the door, and by June, it was impassable without pith helmet and machete. I started off with snips, taking of dead heads; I progressed to secateurs then loppers. Let's just say they've had a good trim! However, the battle wasn't all one sided - my hands are covered in cuts and on Saturday night, they were red hot and stinging.
They've calmed down now - just got the prunings to deal with now - but this time I'll wear gloves!
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Comments
Gerrymh
What's a 'shoogle'?!
Rosemary
A "shoogle" is a shake or agitation. In this case, it involved Dan sticking the fork into the compost bin and shaking the contents around a bit. You may shoogle a pram to sooth a baby to sleep, for example.
ian
Always best to do you dividing just before the start of the growing season. Also, lots of climbing roses flower on last year's wood so you may be short of flowers this year. What went wrong with the fruit trees you planted last year? Often those bought from Tesco are not the best variety and it is better to select a good local nursery that you can support and get some top quality young trees from.
A.T. Hagan
Pruning thorny anything is always a chore. I think blackberries are about the worst, but then they are in the rose family...
.....Alan.
Rosemary
Ian, most of our fruit trees are fine, but we've lost a couple over the years that were bought from a reputable nursery. the Tesco one was an impulse buy - less fattening than chocolate, which is usually my impulse buy of choice!
Alan, I didn't know blackberries and roses were related. You learn something new every day (or in my case, usually several new things!)
Comments are now closed for this post.
molly
Tuesday 20 January, 2009 at 3:37pm
Like you I love roses, however make sure you keep your tetanus shots up to date, they are notorious for assisting in its spread.